The electric vehicle taxi company Nopearide is to exit the Kenyan market as it is still dealing with damage caused by economic woes cause brought about by the Covid 19 pandemic.
Parent company Ekorent Africa filed an insolvency case at a Kenyan court, notifying customers and staff of their plan to exit the East African market.
“We are sad to announce that the company behind NopeaRide taxi hailing service, EkoRent Africa, has filed for insolvency in the Kenyan courts. A hearing date has been set for 13th of December 2022,”
“We have taken our fleet of electric vehicles off the road and have notified our staff and corporate clients. We are now working with relevant authorities to ensure that our operations are wound up in accordance with law.” EkoRent CEO and founder Juha Suojanen said.
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Mr. Suojanen further stated that arrival of additional vehicles under the Nopearide arrived around the time the country put in place strict covid restrictions which affected the numbers.
“Unfortunately, many of the additional vehicles arrived in Nairobi at just about the same time when the strict Covid-19 curfew rules were put in place in March 2020,”
“Those rules lead to daily kilometers driven by Nopea vehicles dropping approximately 60% over night. The timing of these additional Nopea vehicles arriving in Kenya could not have been much worse.” Suojanen added.
NopeaRide service was first launched in Kenya in August of 2018 (under the name NopiaRide) by EkoRent founded in 2014.